OBJECTIVE:Despite the success of stereotactic radiosurgery, large inoperable arteriovenous malformations (AVMs) of 14 cm3 or more have remained largely refractory to stereotactic radiosurgery, with much lower obliteration rates. We review treatment of large AVMs either previously untreated or partially obliterated by embolization with fractionated stereotactic radiotherapy (FSR) regimens using a dedicated linear accelerator (LINAC). METHODS:Before treatment, all patients were discussed at a multidisciplinary radiosurgery board and found to be suitable for FSR. All patients were evaluated for pre-embolization. Those who had feeding pedicles amenable to glue embolization were treated. LINAC technique involved acquisition of a stereotactic angiogram in a relocatable frame that was also used for head localization during treatment. The FSR technique involved the use of six 7-Gy fractions delivered on alternate days over a 2-week period, and this was subsequently dropped to 5-Gy fractions after late complications in one of seven patients treated with 7-Gy fractions. Treatments were based exclusively on digitized biplanar stereotactic angiographic data. We used a Varian 600SR LINAC (Varian Medical Systems, Inc., Palo Alto, CA) and XKnife treatment planning software (Radionics, Inc., Burlington, MA). In most cases, one isocenter was used, and conformality was established by non-coplanar arc beam shaping and differential beam weighting. RESULTS:Thirty patients with large AVMs were treated between January 1995 and August 1998. Seven patients were treated with 42-Gy/7-Gy fractions, with one patient lost to follow-up and the remaining six with previous partial embolization. Twenty-three patients were treated with 30-Gy/5-Gy fractions, with two patients lost to follow-up and three who died as a result of unrelated causes. Of 18 evaluable patients, 8 had previous partial embolization. Mean AVM volumes at FSR treatment were 23.8 and 14.5 cm3, respectively, for the 42-Gy/7-Gy fraction and 30-Gy/5-Gy fraction groups. After embolization, 18 patients still had AVM niduses of 14 cm3 or more: 6 in the 7-Gy cohort and 12 in the 5-Gy cohort. For patients with at least 5-year follow-up, angiographically documented AVM obliteration rates were 83% for the 42-Gy/7-Gy fraction group, with a mean latency of 108 weeks (5 of 6 evaluable patients), and 22% for the 30-Gy/5-Gy fraction group, with an average latency of 191 weeks (4 of 18 evaluable patients) (P = 0.018). For AVMs that remained at 14 cm3 or more after embolization (5 of 6 patients), the obliteration rate remained 80% (4 of 5 patients) for the 7-Gy cohort and dropped to 9% for the 5-Gy cohort. A cumulative hazard plot revealed a 7.2-fold greater likelihood of obliteration with the 42-Gy/7-Gy fraction protocol (P = 0.0001), which increased to a 17-fold greater likelihood for postembolization AVMs of 14 cm3 or more (P = 0.003). CONCLUSION:FSR achieves obliteration for AVMs at a threshold dose, including large residual niduses after embolization. With significant treatment-related morbidities, further investigation warrants a need for better three-dimensional target definition with higher dose conformality.


Carl Schmitt was an intellectual who made the discipline of international law grapple with the major issues of his time. His work as an international lawyer remains largely untranslated. It is riddled with racism and anti-Semitism. However, an interest of his work is that it reflects the 'shadow side' of contemporary international law, forgotten because the moral defeat of Germany in 1945 was so total. Schmitt argues for an inherent tendency to violence and demonization in Western liberal international law theory and practice. He argues for the acceptance of difference as against homogeneity in world society as the only way to limit this violence. Finally, he argues that the liberal tradition is fundamentally compromised by its own colonialist heritage. Its objections to Nazi Germany translating this colonialist imperialism onto Eastern Europe are incoherent. Schmitt's avowed racism and anti-Semitism remain shocking. The article does not try to downplay this aspect of his work. However, it is worth noting that his Nazi bosses, for the most part, thought his racism insincere. If any negative spirit imbues the actual technical detail of Schmitt's work it is his aversion to the West. This probably had its roots in the envy which the Kaiserreich had of the British, French, and American Empires while Schmitt was growing to maturity.


The within‐field spatio‐temporal distributions and relationships of two pest insects with stem‐mining larvae, Psylliodes chrysocephala (L.) (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae) and Ceutorhynchus pallidactylus (Marsham) (Coleoptera: Curculionidae), and their larval endoparasitoids, Tersilochus microgaster (Szépligeti) and Tersilochus obscurator Aubert (Hymenoptera: Ichneumonidae), respectively, were studied in a crop of winter oilseed rape [Brassica napus L. (Brassicaceae)]. The insects were sampled, at different life stages, at 40 spatially referenced points within the oilseed rape in 1998–99 and in the following crop of winter wheat. Distributions were analysed and compared using SADIE (Spatial Analysis by Distance IndicEs) and by tests of edge distribution. Tersilochus microgaster emerged from overwintering by the end of March and T. obscurator from mid April to mid May 2000. Tersilochus microgaster parasitized 10.8% of P. chrysocephala larvae, peak parasitism occurring in May. The distribution of each species was patchy and irregular. Psylliodes chrysocephala and its parasitoid were closely associated, but new generation C. pallidactylus and T. obscurator were less so, probably because of host mortality caused by the parasitoid. The two host–parasitoid pairs showed distributions that were polarized with respect to each other. The genesis of these spatial patterns is discussed in relation to the influence of wind direction, plant size, and interspecific interactions. The potential of these parasitoids as biocontrol agents in integrated pest management is discussed. Opportunities for conservation biocontrol in oilseed rape offered by spatio‐temporal targeting of insecticides to avoid parasitoids and by reduced soil tillage are examined.


For microorganisms in particular, viability is a term that is difficult to define and a state consequently difficult to measure. The traditional (and gold standard) usage equates viability and culturability (i.e., the ability to multiply) but the process of determining culturability is often too slow. Flow cytometry provides the opportunity to make rapid and quantitative measurements of dye uptake in large numbers of cells and we can therefore exploit the flow cytometric approach to evaluate so‐called viability stains and to develop protocols for more routine assessments of microbial viability. This article provides a commentary and several protocols have been included to ensure that users have a firm basis for attempting these reasonably difficult assays on traditional flow cytometer instruments. What is clear is that each assay must be carefully validated with the particular microorganism of interest before being applied in any research, clinical, or service form. © 2020 The Authors.


Objective
To assess the efficacy of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) in DSM-5 obsessive-compulsive-related disorders (OCRDs) and conditions subsumed under an "extended" OCD spectrum, including tic disorders and self-injurious behaviors.

Data Sources
A systematic search of the MEDLINE, Web of Science, Scopus, and LILACS databases and other sources was performed between June 6 and July 2, 2017. Search terms included (Autis*) AND (ECT OR electroconvulsive), (Self-injur*) AND (ECT OR electroconvulsive), (Tic* OR Tourette) AND (ECT OR electroconvulsive), (Body Dysmorphic Disorder OR Dysmorphophobi*) AND (ECT OR electroconvulsive), (Hoard*) AND (ECT OR electroconvulsive), (Trichotillomani*) AND (ECT OR electroconvulsive), (Skin Picking OR Excoriation) AND (ECT OR electroconvulsive), (Grooming) AND (ECT OR electroconvulsive), (Kleptomani*) AND (ECT OR electroconvulsive), and (Pyromani*) AND (ECT OR electroconvulsive). No search restrictions (ie, date, language, or document type) were used.

Study Selection
Fifty-two records that described the individual responses of OCRDs to ECT (involving 69 patients) were selected.

Data Extraction
Clinical data and responses of individual cases were recorded. Data from responders were compared to nonresponders.

Results
All records were case reports or case series; there were no randomized controlled trials. Of the 69 OCRD participants who had undergone ECT, a positive response was reported in 73.4% of the cases (including 44.0% of the BDD, 74.1% of the tic disorder, and 85.7% of the self-injurious behavior patients). At follow-up, the majority of responders who had abstained from further ECT had experienced relapse. However, a positive response was obtained in all participants who received a new course of ECT. Patients who responded positively to ECT were likely to report previous unsuccessful treatment with antipsychotics (P < .001) and antidepressants (P = .007).

Conclusions
The finding that more than 70% of the reviewed cases showed some response to ECT should not be considered unequivocal evidence of its efficacy in OCRDs. The available evidence suggests that a randomized controlled trial of ECT in OCRDs may be warranted, particularly in severe tic disorders and self-injurious behaviors.


Abstract Fire mapping science can benefit from standard techniques for analyzing time‐series data. The Z transform produces the z‐score, termed a standardized variable because the units are dimensionless standard deviations. The Z transform represents a simple, older way to characterize non‐image data, but is presented here as a new way to enhance fire scar anomalies in image time‐series data. The transform is invertible, and can be applied to any continuous, gridded data. Time series data from the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) are featured. When applied in the x, y (i.e., spatial) plane of AVHRR Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) data, the Z transform places each NDVI value in the statistical context at the time of image formation, producing Z‐standardized NDVI (ZNDVI) values. Invoking the Z transform across the z (time series) plane of ZNDVI images produces a multitemporal Z (MTZ) score for each pixel in a ZNDVI target image for a selected time step. The MTZ image thus depicts the deviation or departure of a given pixel, for a specific step in the series, relative to the mean for that pixel across the time series. A case study demonstrates an MTZ enhancement of AVHRR NDVI data that enhances in the Rincon Mountains east of Tucson, Arizona unusually low NDVI values associated with a 1994 wildfire scar. Enhancements are confirmed using higher‐resolution remote sensor data from the Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM).


The benefits and risks of evaluating how writing centers effect
students' performance on exit exams.
Sophia makes her first visit to the writing center
in a state of desperation[1]. Although she's
earning adequate grades in the Basic Writing class
she's currently taking (for the third time), she has
twice failed the institutionally-mandated exit
exam that will enable her to enter a college
composition course focusing on academic
argumentation. If she doesn't pass the exam on
her third try, she'll be dismissed from the
university. During the exam she'll have two hours
to read a short passage she's never seen before
and craft a response, supporting her position with
appropriate examples. She has only a few weeks
before the exam date — just enough time for a
handful of individual consultations with a peer tutor and participation in a group
workshop for Basic Writing students.


Energy consumption is a growing concern for data centers. Advances in server equipment technologies and increased demand for computing power have increased load densities in the computer room, which in turn has caused corresponding increases in data center power consumption. Energy efficiency measures are thus of high importance for data center designers, operators, and owners. This article outlines a software-based approach to the data gathering, trending, and analysis that are necessary to apply successful energy efficiency measures in data center environments.


Tuberculosis is a disease that is contagious and can make stigma. The stigma gained by Tuberculosis clients is curse disease and poor people disease. This study aims to identify feelings that are felt and experienced by child Tuberculosis clients so that appropriate interventions can be carried out. Qualitative research methods were chosen because this study tried to explore the stigma and discrimination of child clients with Tuberculosis in Jember. Participants in this study were 5 participants. The results showed that the stigma and discrimination of child Tuberculosis clients in Jember that the response when diagnosed was sad because of being exposed to an infectious disease, the label of discrimination came from siblings, neighbors, and schools. The form of discrimination that occurs is knowing the closest person, the separation of places to eat, and seating in school. The perceived way of stigma is curse disease and infectious diseases. The cause of stigma is because people around feel afraid, the impact felt by participants is often alone, sad, angry, and sometimes crying. An effort needs to be made to prevent or minimize the stigma of Tuberculosis clients. Screening can be done as a way to identify the presence/absence of self-stigma in newly diagnosed and those who have undergone treatment.


The present work shows that it is possible to ring-open cyclic carbonates with unprotected amino acids in water. Fine tuning of the reaction parameters made it possible to suppress the degree of hydrolysis in relation to aminolysis. This enabled the synthesis of functionally dense carbamates containing alkenes, carboxylic acids, alcohols and thiols after short reaction times at room temperature. When Glycine was used as the nucleophile in the ring-opening with four different five membered cyclic carbonates, containing a plethora of functional groups, the corresponding carbamates could be obtained in excellent yields (>90%) without the need for any further purification. Furthermore, the orthogonality of the transformation was explored through ring-opening of divinylenecarbonate with unprotected amino acids equipped with nucleophilic side chains, such as serine and cysteine. In these cases the reaction selectively produced the desired carbamate, in 70 and 50% yield respectively. The synthetic design provides an inexpensive and scalable protocol towards highly functionalized building blocks that are envisioned to find applications in both the small and macromolecular arena.


This paper discusses the problems concerned with the non-destructive test inspection of standing wire ropes such as those used either as guy or suspension ropes. In particular, the problems associated with the examination of tension members staying radio towers and antenna masts (which incorporate ceramic insulators) are addressed. The special design of an ultra-light weight magnetic testing head that may be split into sections for ease of installation and working at heights or around ceramic insulators is described. Equipped with both inductive (LF) and Hall effect sensors (LMA), the test head can assess both local faults and other types of rope degradation. This paper presents the results from the use of this equipment, in conjunction with the MD120 digital recorder (Meraster, Poland), in service on both guy and suspension ropes.


Bone is a surprisingly versatile tissue. It provides body shape, protection of vital organs,
and enables locomotion. Additionally, it forms a reservoir for calcium, phosphate and
bone marrow cells, and is the endocrine organ involved in phosphate homeostasis. It is
also a dynamic tissue, while it has the capacity to regenerate, and to change in shape,
mass, and quality. Bone is remodeled at such a high speed that approximately 5-10% of
the total bone content is replaced per year in adult humans1.
Furthermore, bone is a mechanosensitive tissue. Mechanical loading plays a crucial
role in maintenance of bone: disuse or unloading may cause osteoporosis, which
results in increased fracture risk. Both socially and economically, osteoporosis and its
complications have a severe impact on the individual and society. One way to prevent
osteoporosis is physical activity. Moreover, physical stimuli have proven to be beneficial
in fracture healing and remodeling of malunions.
Prerequisite for the maintenance of skeletal homeostasis are cells that degrade old
bone (osteoclasts), and those that deposit new bone in its place (osteoblasts). In order
to respond to mechanical stress, the physical stimulus needs to be converted into a
biochemical signal, eventually resulting in a biological response. This process is called
mechanotransduction. Osteoblasts and osteocytes are the main effectors to facilitate
this process, equipped with mechanoreceptors on the cell membrane, signal transduction
pathways in the cytoplasm, and dedicated 'mechanosensitive' genes in the nucleus.
Although this concept is generally accepted, little is known on the exact molecular
mechanisms that play a role in mechanotransduction in bone.
While osteoblasts and osteocytes are both part of the same differentiating lineage,
these cells have entirely different characteristics.
This thesis focuses on the effects of mechanical loading and human osteoblast differentiation
in vitro. This first chapter will provide background information and the
rationale for this work.


Abstract. With two-dimensional (2-D) particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations we investigate the evolution of the double layer (DL) driven by magnetic reconnection. Our results show that an electron beam can be generated in the separatrix region as magnetic reconnection proceeds. This electron beam could trigger the ion-acoustic instability; as a result, a DL accompanied with electron holes (EHs) can be found during the nonlinear evolution stage of this instability. The spatial size of the DL is about 10 Debye lengths. This DL propagates along the magnetic field at a velocity of about the ion-acoustic speed, which is consistent with the observation results.


The tumor microenvironment (TME) is a multifaceted ecosystem characterized by profound cellular heterogeneity, dynamicity, and complex intercellular cross-talk. The striking responses obtained with immune checkpoint blockers, i.e., antibodies targeting immune-cell regulators to boost antitumor immunity, have demonstrated the enormous potential of anticancer treatments that target TME components other than tumor cells. However, as checkpoint blockade is currently beneficial only to a limited fraction of patients, there is an urgent need to understand the mechanisms orchestrating the immune response in the TME to guide the rational design of more effective anticancer therapies. In this Mini Review, we give an overview of the methodologies that allow studying the heterogeneity of the TME from multi-omics data generated from bulk samples, single cells, or images of tumor-tissue slides. These include approaches for the characterization of the different cell phenotypes and for the reconstruction of their spatial organization and inter-cellular cross-talk. We discuss how this broader vision of the cellular heterogeneity and plasticity of tumors, which is emerging thanks to these methodologies, offers the opportunity to rationally design precision immuno-oncology treatments. These developments are fundamental to overcome the current limitations of targeted agents and checkpoint blockers and to bring long-term clinical benefits to a larger fraction of cancer patients.


Most FDA‐approved drugs are not equally effective in all patients, suggesting that identification of biomarkers to predict responders to a chemoprevention agent will be needed to stratify patients and achieve maximum benefit. The goal of this study was to investigate both patient‐specific and cell context‐specific heterogeneity of metformin response, using fibroblast cell lines and induced pluripotent stem cells differentiated into lung epithelial lineages. We performed cell survival analysis, transcriptome and whole exome sequencing analysis on both patient‐derived cell lines and cancer cell lines to assess differential metformin response and identify response genes. We found differences in response to metformin treatment across a variety of cell lines and cellular contexts, suggesting that heterogeneity may be patient‐ and cell type‐specific. Gene expression profiling and analysis of metformin‐sensitive and metformin‐resistant cells identified differentially expressed genes that may be able to stratify patients into metformin responders and non‐responders. Sequencing analysis found genomic alterations that correlated with metformin response. These results suggest that the identification of genomic biomarkers for patients who may respond to metformin treatment can provide an opportunity for individualizing metformin chemoprevention in the clinical setting.


Purpose: Central lobe epilepsy (CLE) is a focal epilepsy arising from the pre- and/or postcentral gyrus,
and is by nature often medically refractory with a high seizure frequency. Surgery is not an evident
treatment due to the high risk of contralateral sensorimotor impairment, related to excision of eloquent
cortex. Recently, a trial for a new therapy for CLE patients has been proposed: Rational Extra-Eloquent
Closed-loop Cortical Stimulation (REC2Stim) using electrical stimulation within a local epileptogenic
network to abort the build-up towards a seizure. The stimulation location is preferably connected to
the seizure onset zone (SOZ), but outside eloquent cortex. Single pulse electrical stimulation (SPES) is
often used to identify the SOZ based on delayed responses (DRs), but can also expose the underlying
connections based on early responses (ERs). In time-frequency decompositions of SPES, suppression of
power for frequencies <250 Hz is sometimes observed after stimulation. We hypothesized that power
suppression after SPES might serve as a surrogate marker for suppression of epileptiform activity and
could be a preferred site of cortical network stimulation. As ERs can identify cortical connections and
were sometimes co-observed with the suppressions, we explored whether this suppressed power (SP) was
associated with the occurrence of ERs and therefore, a direct connection between cortex underneath the
stimulus pair and response electrode. Furthermore, we explored whether timing of the stimulation and
thus the phase of the background electrocorticography (ECoG) signal determines the occurrence of an SP.
Method: Refractory epilepsy patients who underwent intracranial subdural electrocorticography
monitoring at the UMC Utrecht were retrospectively analysed. SPES (10 pulses: 0.2 Hz, 1 ms, 4-8
mA) was routinely administered on adjacent electrode pairs. A machine learning algorithm (support
vector machine (SVM)) was developed to detect SP based on features 'area' and 'duration' (chapter 2).
ERs and SP were detected and visually checked in a total of 34600 responses across ten subjects. Six
subjects had (one of) their grids implanted in the central lobe. The other four subjects had grids
implanted elsewhere. We determined the number of response electrodes in which both ER and SP,
either ER or SP, and neither ER nor SP were evoked by the same stimulus pair. A chi-squared test was
used to determine whether SP was associated with the occurrence of ERs (chapter 3). The relevance
of the phase of the ECoG signal at the moment of stimulation for the occurrence of power suppression
was researched with the inter trial coherence (ITC) and instantaneous phase between stimuli with a
suppression (chapter 4).
Results: Ten subjects were included (four females, median age 15, range 9-41 years). In all subjects,
the number of response electrodes with SP was smaller than those with ERs. All subjects considered,
8% of the responses contained both ER and SP, 16% had an ER without SP, 3% had an SP without an
ER and 73% had neither ER nor SP. In each subject, significantly more electrodes with both ER and
SP were found than would be expected based on chance (p<.001). This was also found when combining
subjects (p<.001). For each subject a stimulation pair outside functional area, causing suppression in
(part of) the SOZ, could be found. For one subject (female, 31 years), the ITC was determined for
individual stimuli. No significant difference in ITC between the stimuli with suppression and the stimuli
without suppression was found. A difference in the distribution between up and down phase was seen.
Conclusion: The occurrence of SP was strongly associated with the occurrence of ERs. However,
response electrodes with SP are no perfect subset of response electrodes to whom an ER is evoked.
Further research is needed to investigate whether cortical stimulation, suppressing power after SPES,
is also effective in reducing epileptiform activity. In one subject we did not identify significance
in phase coherence right before stimulation. Studying more subjects would be appropriate to reach
a definite conclusion about the influence of the phase on the occurrence of power suppression after SPES.


How do we learn with the environments we inhabit to promote mutual flourishing? This paper argues that environmental arts practice is a key component in the pedagogical process of getting to know where we live and, through a more-than-human intersubjective exchange, enriching our response-ability to the environment. To think through and work towards this pedagogy we explore a small patch of Gaïa – the Rotary Park Rainforest Reserve in Lismore, New South Wales – via a photography and video project that contemplates didactic and interpretive signs along a short walking circuit. Crucial to our contemplation of this environmental arts project are concepts for action that we develop by putting into conversation ideas from the environmental humanities and early childhood education: progettazione, time to learn, provocation and attention. Through aesthetic immersion in, and in dialogue with the forest, these concepts help us conceptualise a regenerative curriculum and relational pedagogy that energise, amongst other things, environmental arts in-the-making.


AZODO suture is a simple, easy, success-oriented periodontal pocket reduction and gingival papilla reconstruction procedure. It starts with obtaining informed consent for the procedure followed by scaling, root planing, and curettage of the diseased pocket and then by an interrupted suture with polyglycolic resorbable suture. When the pockets on two adjacent teeth exist, a modification (MODIFIED AZODO suture) in the form of horizontal mattress suturing technique is used. The hypothesized mechanism of action is that the suturing of the gingiva apposes the facial and lingual side of the interdental gingiva with the tissues filling the interdental space-generating pressure that facilitates the apposition of the gingiva on the distal/mesial surfaces of the tooth with pocket. The consequent tissue modeling facilitates a proper interdental papilla. This prevents food impaction, ensures cleanliness, facilitates healing, and restores the interdental health.


In the engineering design, engineers have been suffering the difficulty in sharing conceptual engineering knowledge about functionality representing design rationales because of lack of rich common vocabulary for functionality. In order to promote sharing of such knowledge, we have developed an ontological framework for its modeling including layered ontologies, which provides rich concepts for describing consistent and reusable knowledge. This article summarizes the framework and the successful deployment in a company. In the context of the semantic web, our framework can be viewed as a metadata schema of documents about engineering devices. This article also discusses metadata from the viewpoint of functionality as a usage of our ontologies in the semantic web.


Background Our objective was to investigate whether the effect of a brief and standardised acupuncture approach persists after the end of the acupuncture treatment (post-treatment effect) and whether the anticipation of future acupuncture treatment affects menopausal symptoms (pre-treatment effect). Method This study is a post hoc analysis of data from a randomised controlled trial where women with moderate to severe menopausal symptoms were offered weekly acupuncture treatment over five consecutive weeks and randomised (1:1) to an early intervention group that received treatment immediately and a late intervention group with a 6-week delay. The acupuncture style was Western medical, administered at CV3, CV4 and bilateral LR8, SP6 and SP9. Acupuncturists were general practitioners. The effect was evaluated repeatedly during and after the interventions using scales from the validated MenoScores Questionnaire (MSQ) for hot flushes (HF), day and night sweats (DNS), general sweating (GS) and menopausal-specific sleeping problems (MSSP) with a 26-week follow-up period (corresponding to 21 or 15 weeks post-treatment for the early and late intervention groups, respectively). Multivariable linear mixed models were used to analyse the extent and duration of effects. Results Seventy participants were included in the study. Four participants dropped out. Furthermore, one participant was excluded from the short- and long-term follow-up analyses after the insertion of a hormonal intrauterine device, and nine participants were excluded from the long-term follow-up analysis due to the initiation of co-interventions. For each of the four outcomes, the effect was sustained up to 21 weeks post-treatment with an effect size that was only slightly diminished. A small, but significant, pre-treatment effect was observed in the HF scale scores. The same trend, although not significant, was observed in the DNS and MSSP scale scores. No serious harms were reported. Conclusion This study demonstrated that the overall effect of a brief and standardised acupuncture treatment on menopause-relevant outcomes was sustained up to 21 weeks post-treatment and that there was a small pre-treatment effect.


A recent survey reported that 41% of employers cited healthcare cost as the most serious challenge facing their organization. Healthcare benefits have become one of the largest, fastest-growing, and most significant expenses for American companies. With no end in sight to crippling increases, it stands to reason that employers are seeking more innovative and effective strategies to keep costs in check.


The present study focuses on the wish to be held and the wish to hold in men and women and is based on data collected from both a questionnaire and interviews. It was assumed that cultural sex-role stereotypes would influence the results. More specifically, it was postulated that men would find it easier to acknowledge and discuss their wish to hold rather than their wish to be held, but our data did not support this postulation. The chief differences between men and women were the trend for women to favor being held over holding and the much more sizeable group of women than men who were extremely high scorers on the body contact scale. Men, at least those who are psychiatric patients, can acknowledge their longings to be held, but the intensity of this feeling either does not reach the height attained by some women or, if it does, it is not reported.


Using affect control theory, an ideal type of authority is developed from the literature identifying three dimensions of meaning. This ideal type is then used to compare U.S. and German subjects. Because their power is legitimated by cultural rules, authorities are positively evaluated despite their ability to coerce. Because it is understood, authorities need not engage in expressive action to demonstrate their power. The affective meaning of role identities reflects their structural meaning, such as authority. Role identities, rated on three-dimensional semantic differential scales of affective meaning, are classified using a K-means clustering algorithm to empirically generate clusters of structural meaning. The cluster discussed here corresponds to the ideal typical authority category of potent, positively evaluated, and not expressive role identities. In the two studies reported here involving more than 1,700 U.S. and German subjects, I find a high degree of cross-cultural agreement on what is classified as authority. However, U.S. and German youth differ significantly in confirming the ideal type of authority. German youth dislike the power potential of authorities more than their U.S. counterparts do.


Although scholars have established that customer satisfaction affects different dimensions of firm financial performance, a managerially important but overlooked aspect is its effect on a firm's future cost of selling (COS), that is, expenditures associated with persuading customers and providing convenience to them. Accordingly, this study presents the first empirical and theoretical examination of the impact of customer satisfaction on future COS. The authors propose that while higher customer satisfaction can lower future COS, the degree to which a firm realizes this benefit depends on its strategy and operating environment. Analyzing almost two decades of data from 128 firms, the authors find that customer satisfaction has a statistically and economically significant negative effect on future COS. While the negative effect of customer satisfaction on future COS is weaker for firms with higher capital intensity and financial leverage, this effect is stronger for more diversified firms and for firms operating in industries with higher growth and labor intensity. The authors also find that these effects may vary across two components of COS, cost of persuasion and convenience.


The primate visual system consists of a ventral stream, specialized for object recognition, and a dorsal visual stream, which is crucial for spatial vision and actions. However, little is known about the interactions and information flow between these two streams. We investigated these interactions within the network processing three-dimensional (3D) object information, comprising both the dorsal and ventral stream. Reversible inactivation of the macaque caudal intraparietal area (CIP) during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) reduced fMRI activations in posterior parietal cortex in the dorsal stream and, surprisingly, also in the inferotemporal cortex (ITC) in the ventral visual stream. Moreover, CIP inactivation caused a perceptual deficit in a depth-structure categorization task. CIP-microstimulation during fMRI further suggests that CIP projects via posterior parietal areas to the ITC in the ventral stream. To our knowledge, these results provide the first causal evidence for the flow of visual 3D information from the dorsal stream to the ventral stream, and identify CIP as a key area for depth-structure processing. Thus, combining reversible inactivation and electrical microstimulation during fMRI provides a detailed view of the functional interactions between the two visual processing streams.


Tackling inequities in children's outcomes matters both from a moral perspective, and because of persuasive social and economic arguments. Reducing inequity in children's outcomes requires tackling structural and social issues. The paper provides evidence about how social, economic and environmental conditions shape inequities in children's outcomes. Building on insights generated through studies on the social determinants of health, the paper provides a framework to inform research and policy to reduce inequities in children's outcomes, with a specific focus on low- and middle-income countries.


K5-type yeast killer toxin secreted by P. anomala NCYC 434 cells has a broad killing spectrum. Competitive inhibiton of killer activity showed that glucans, mainly the β-1,3 glucan, represent the primary toxin binding site within the cell wall of sensitive cells. Its hydrolytic activity on laminarin in an exo-like fashion revealed that the toxin exerts its killing effect by exo-β-1,3-glucanase activity. Its specific activity on laminarin was 120 U/mg, and the Michaelis constants K m and V max for laminarin hydrolysis were 0.25 mg/ml and 370 μmol/min/mg. The toxin exerted its cytocidal effect after 2 h contact with the target cells. Production of the toxin by the cells was induced only when they were grown in culture media rich in β-glucan sources, and the addition of glucose increased the specific production rate. The enzymic activity of the toxin was fully inhibited by Hg+2, but increased with some other metal ions, most of all by Pb+2.


A technique for fertilizing zebrafish eggs by injection of sperm nuclei is described. Eggs that cleave normally can develop into swimming larvae and give rise to fertile adults. If sperm nuclei are preincubated for 20 min with DNA encoding the green fluorescent protein, transgene expression can be detected in all cells of the embryo. The use of condensed sperm nuclei allows injection with a small bore pipette, which is critical for successful injection of the relatively small zebrafish egg. This technique enables the generation of ubiquitously expressing transgenic zebrafish directly by microinjection. Hence, experiments involving transgenic fish can be completed in days, without the need for growing and breeding founders. This technique may also be used to generate transgenic lines, as transgene expression was visible in the offspring of transgenic founders. The method described here is likely to be applicable to other teleosts, such as medaka and salmon.


In this communication, the beam properties of one-dimensional leaky-wave antennas (1-D LWAs) are explored when the LWA scanning approaches endfire. By increasing the phase constant beyond the ordinary endfire condition, smaller beamwidths can be produced at the expense of increased sidelobe level (SLL). This tradeoff is quantified here for the first time for endfire 1-D LWAs. Simple CAD formulas are also proposed that describe accurately the beamwidth and SLL for 1-D LWAs operating at endfire. This communication is conducted for different radiation efficiencies covering most practical ranges. A closed-form expression for the beamwdith of a 1-D LWA with an infinite aperture is also given, in which case there are no sidelobes. These results allow for a better understanding and efficient design of LWAs radiating at endfire.


The microstructure of an 11% Cr martensitic steel was investigated in normalized-andtempered condition. It was found that the microstructure was tempered martensite consisting of prior γ grains and laths. M23C6 precipitates were mainly distributed along prior γ grain boundaries and lath boundaries and small amount of M3B2 particles were aligned almost as a line along rolling direction. MX nano-particles were distributed in the matrix. Complex inclusions containing titanium were also found in the microstructure. Tensile cracks were easily to nucleate at the interface between matrix and M3B2 particles or inclusions.


An adaptive actor-critic algorithm is proposed under the assumption that a predictive model is available and only the measurement at time k is used to update the learning algorithms. Two value-functions are realized as a pure static mapping, according to the fact that they can be reduced to nonlinear current estimators, which can be easily constructed by using any artificial neural networks (NNs) with sigmoidal function or radial basis function (RBF), if all the inputs to the present value-functions are based on simulated experiences generated from the predictive model. In addition, if a predictive model is assumed to be used to construct a model-based actor (MBA) in the framework of adaptive actor-critic approach, then this type of MBA can be viewed as a network whose connection weights are composed of the elements of feedback gain matrix, so that the temporal difference (TD) learning can also be naturally applied to update the weights of the actor. Since the present method can update the learning by using only one measurement at time k, a relatively fast learning is expected, compared with the previous approach that needs two measurements at times k and k + 1 to update the actor-critic networks. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is illustrated by simulating a trajectory-tracking control problem for a nonholonomic mobile robot.


Abstract Separation of light gaseous olefins from paraffin's of the refinery process off-gasses has been traditionally performed by cryogenic distillation, which is a highly capital and energy intensive operation. This handicap creates an incentive for the investigation of alternative olefin/paraffin separation technologies. In this regard, membrane technology supposes a potential solution for process intensification. Previous works of our research group reported the use of facilitated transport composite membranes integrating the use of PVDF-HFP polymer, BMImBF4 ionic liquid and AgBF4 silver salt. In this type of membranes, the silver cations react selectively and reversibly with the olefin, allowing the separation via mobile and fixed carrier mechanisms. Ionic liquids were selected as membrane additives because in addition to their negligible vapor pressure that avoids solvent losses by evaporation, they provide stability to the metallic cation dissolved inside, and modify the structure improving the facilitated transport. This technology offers a commercial attractive separation alternative thanks to their modular form of operation, high values of selectivity and permeability and low operational costs. In the present work, propane/propylene permeation experiments involving the use ionic liquids and different membrane compositions were performed. Moreover, basing on the transport and equilibrium parameters previously obtained, a mathematical model description of the system will be proposed fitting the remaining parameters and allowing the design and optimization of the propane/propylene separation process at industrial levels.


Availability of advanced materials has opened up opportunities in meeting several functional requirements through hybridization. Hybrids consisting of ceramics, metals and high performance polymers could benefit many aircraft and space satellite applications. They could meet requirements of low weight, high environmental stability, and high thermal or dimensional stability. In this study, hybrid materials consisting of high performance polymer, porous ceramics (glass microballoons) and other constituents such as Zircornium Tungstate (with negative coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE)) and nanoclay were studied. Specimens were successfully produced with a range of density from 0.4 to 1.1 g/cm3 depending on the degree of fill in the syntactic foams. CTE tailoring was achieved to greatly reduce the residual stress arising from processing and CTE mismatch of dissimilar materials. The evaluations of dimensional stability were examined from thermomechanical analysis. The synergistic effects of resin, ceramic constituents and pores on the hybrid properties will be presented.


The observable decay with frequency ( f ) of Fourier amplitude spectra for ground-motion recordings is controlled by a parameter κ : exp(- πκf ). We analyze data from the KiK-net network, which is composed of stations with paired ground-motion sensors, one at the surface and one in a borehole. This study estimates κ for all KiK-net stations, using earthquakes recorded between 1998 and 2006. An inversion scheme is used to separate site, source, and path contributions to κ .

We correlate the site component of κ ( κ ), estimated at the surface and the depth, with different S -wave velocity measures and with the fundamental resonant frequency of the site. The results show that the best correlations involve shallow soil S -wave velocity measures. The superficial layers of the soil predominantly influence κ , but a remaining component with a deep origin is also observed. The source component of κ is small and presents a clear regional dependence, while no correlations with magnitude or depth of the earthquake are observed.

Data from the Next Generation of Attenuation (NGA) database are also used to estimate κ (surface site component) at the stations with a measured V S 30 value. The V S 30- κ couples estimated from both KiK-net and NGA data are compared with results from the literature, and a new correlation is established.

Most of the ground-motion prediction equations (GMPEs) for stable continental regions are derived for very hard rock sites ( V S 30>2000 m/s). In order to use these equations for standard rock sites ( V S 30 around 800 m/s), conversion factors are required. Using the new correlation V S 30- κ and the host-to-target adjustment method of Campbell (2003), we compute amplification factors from very hard rock to rock sites. We show that in these conversions, the effects of both V S 30 and κ have to be taken into account.


In this guide you will find lists of resources that are both appropriate and relevant to topics in criminal justice.


The first aim of this study is to find out the differences of student's vocabulary achievement between student who were taught using Diglot Weave Technique and student who were taught using Student Team Achievement Division, and the second is to find which groups will gain higher score between female and male. This comparative study was done at SMP Negeri 1 Parongpong that involved two groups from grade 8B as DWT class and 8C as STAD class. Total participants were 74 students. DWT consisted of 26 females and 11 males and STAD, 23 females and 14 males. Based on SPSS 16.0 data analyzing, it depicted that ρ value is 0.035 < 0.05. Thus, there is significant difference between students who taught using DWT and students who were taught using STAD. Besides, the answer for the second question, it was found that either in DWT or STAD, female and male' normalized gain score are only slightly different.


This article aimed to find a new way to transform the graphic image (drawing, photos, etc) to the pattern parameters of female apparel with raglan sleeve. The correlation and regressive analysis were used to the data in order to find the existing laws between them. The practical examinations demonstrated the good predictability of equations established.


This paper proposal is to include MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) as creditable courses in engineering programs at the National Polytechnic School of Ecuador. In addition to fulfilling a number of requirements related to the content and duration of the courses, one important challenge is that these selected MOOCs should comply with web accessibility requirements specific for the special needs of non-native speakers. Web accessibility is the property of a website to support the same level of effectiveness for people with disabilities as it does for non-disabled people. As an accessible website is designed to meet different user needs, preferences, skills and situations, this flexibility also benefits people without disabilities in certain situations, such as MOOC students who are non-native speakers. Unfortunately, MOOCs raise new challenges on web accessibility. For example, cultural differences and background knowledge have to be taken into account when choosing contents, examples, and learning activities which might be unfamiliar or even offensive to certain cultures. Also, user interfaces requires special adaptations for non-native speakers. We present a preliminary list of web accessibility requirements and highlight the challenges non-native speakers experience when using MOOCs. The goal is to raise awareness about the particular needs of non-native speakers. This understanding will be the base for establishing criteria for a preliminary selection of MOOCs as creditable courses in engineering programs at the National Polytechnic School. These criteria can also be useful for other higher education institutions interested in including MOOCs in their official programs.


Magnetic structures of SmCo/Fe bilayers during remagnetization and after multiple field cycling are studied magneto-optically (MO). Rotation of the remanent magnetization in the soft Fe layer away from the easy axis is found after large enough remagnetizing fields. This is indicative of the appearance of biquadratic coupling between the layers. It is explained by the fluctuation exchange mechanism due to the field induced magnetic inhomogeneity of the hard layer. Such an inhomogeneity revealed in the MO patterns also explains the degradation of the bias field in exchange springs.


Fruit growing as a specific plant production activity can contribute highly to the economic development of the region, which is particularly pronounced in upland areas. Environmental predispositions of these parts of Serbia provide them with certain comparative advantages over other areas, while, on the other hand, these areas are predominated by farms of chiefly mixed or fruit growing and livestock – farming type. In addition, long fruit growing tradition is generally the main characteristic of these areas. The most frequent and sometimes even crucial motives are the economic ones because fruit production can lead to considerably higher production values per hectare compared to common subsistence forms of farming, which often has a decisive effect on farms and fruit production intensification. In agricultural land structure of Serbia the share of orchards is 4.7%, it is 6.8% in the central part of Serbia and in some upland areas it even exceeds 15% (the orchard proportion in the region of Cacak is 15.2%).


The health decision-making dynamics of adolescents in New York and Montana are assessed. Ninth-grade students were asked to make a decision on a hypothetical dilemma scenario. From their choice they were classified as either health-promoting decision makers (HPDM) or health-risky decision makers (HRDM). They were subsequently asked a series of questions dealing with future health choices, degree of reflection, the effect of stress upon choice selection, and type of cognition during decision. Results indicate that HPDM intended not to engage in future, risky sexual behavior or drinking and driving behavior(s). Health-risky decision makers were, however, more reflective in making their initial choice. The variable of stress was not definitive for either group, and significant regional differences were not evident. Implications for the design of school health education program curricula are presented along with suggestions for future investigation.


A method of modelling DC-DC converters has been developed using SIMULINK. For flyback quasi-resonant converter (QRC), the equations for the state variables and the active and passive switches have been derived and a corresponding SIMULINK model has been constructed. Sub-models for the different parts of the controller have also been constructed, and the complete system has been simulated. This modelling technique requires less memory and CPU time than SPICE.


Wireless sensor networks consisting of hundreds to thousands of nodes are expected to find increasing deployment in coming years, as they enable reliable monitoring and analysis of physical worlds. These networks have unique features that are very different from traditional networks, e.g., the large number of nodes, limitation in power. Due to these unique features of wireless sensor networks, their management including querying becomes a challenging problem. In general, it is widely accepted that Web-based management should be used for managing and querying sensor networks. In this paper, we present the architecture of the sensor gateway for Web-based management and its implementation details. We assume that wireless sensor networks have 3-level regional hierarchy, but our gateway is flexible enough to cooperate with other type sensor networks. In addition, to make our gateway process user's query dynamically without intervention of user, a back socket is opened using Java applet. For this purpose, Java script code is embedded in Web page to link Java applet code.


The 2011 the Western Cape Forum for Intellectual Disability v Government of The Republic of South Africa case flagged a lot of issues faced by persons with disabilities relating to access to education in South Africa. The case tackled certain perceptions about the ineducability of persons with profound and severe disability and the remaining charity-oriented perception by the South African Department of Basic Education. While the court made several important points in advancing universal access to education, the author argues that certain holes in the judgment hinders the existence of judicial finding truly infused with concerns of substantive equality. An example of this short-coming is the court's consideration of reasonableness when the right to basic education is an immediately realisable right. The author also argues that the South African developments in education policy for persons with disability, while positive, is insufficient to truly give effect to substantive equality – the claim to equality being made in the new constitutional dispensation. There is still an attitude that is too permissive of separating students based on abilism. The social model of thinking about requires a complete transformation of the education system that would not require a classification of learners by abilities but have a different constitution so as to accommodate all students and not unduly enable one group over another. The author considers the approaches from Canada and India to explore its responses to education for students with varying levels of ability. Canada's similar conception of equality and India's influence on South African constitutionalism and shared experience with massive equality gaps make these jurisdictions instructive.


This paper focuses on determining the transfer function (TF) of a highly nonlinear and hysteretic piezoelectric actuator and its inverse. A system identification (SI) technique was employed based on the direct measurements of the input-output data from a patch type piezoelectric actuator mounted on a suitably designed platform equipped with appropriate instrumentations. Eventually, the actuator TF models were approximated through a rigorous analytical procedure. Verification and validation of the results are performed to ensure that the transfer functions obtained are practically viable and implementable. An illustrative case study involving the control of the identified piezo actuator using closed-loop control methods employing a conventional proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controller and PID with active force control (PIDAFC). The outcome of the study clearly indicates the effectiveness of the proposed schemes. Key-Words: Hysteretic behaviour, piezoelectric patch actuator; transfer function, system identification, active force control


The categories associated with modern French commensality help to illuminate various forms of Roman public dining, most notably, meals linked to events of the life cycle and religious festivals, as well as those sponsored by collegia and by the emperor himself. A comparative approach of this sort brings into sharper focus the nature of this social practice by underscoring the propensity of meals in the ancient world both to unite and to separate diners by social rank.


Development of stroke while on left ventricular assist device (LVAD) support can be a source of significant morbidity and mortality. From March 2006 through November 2011, one hundred patients with chronic heart failure underwent implantation of a HeartMate II (HM II) LVAD (Thoratec Corp.) as a bridge to transplant (BTT; n = 65) or destination therapy (DT; n = 35). Records were reviewed to determine the prevalence and type of postimplant stroke, anatomic cerebral location of strokes, and associated morbidity and mortality. Cox multivariate logistic regression analysis was conducted to identify independent predictors of postoperative stroke. Strokes occurred in 12 patients (12.0%): four embolic and eight hemorrhagic. Median duration of support at the time of stroke was 281.0 days for embolic strokes and 380.5 days for hemorrhagic strokes (p = 0.028). Stroke patients had a significantly higher incidence of diabetes (66.7% vs. 40.9%; p = 0.024), history of preimplant stroke (16.7% vs. 4.5%; p = 0.046), and aortic cross-clamping with cardioplegic arrest during their LVAD implant (50.0% vs. 20.2%; p = 0.034) compared with patients without postoperative strokes. Mean international normalized ratio (INR) at the time of stroke was subtherapeutic in all four patients with embolic strokes (mean: 1.5 ± 0.1 IU; range 1.3–1.6 IU) and supratherapeutic in four of eight patients with hemorrhagic strokes (mean: 3.2 ± 2.2 IU, range: 1.4–7.0 IU; p = 0.024). There was a 25.0% 30 day mortality after stroke. Diabetes (odds ratio [OR] 6.36; p = 0.029), aortic cross-clamping with cardioplegic arrest (OR 4.75; p = 0.025), duration of LVAD support (OR 1.00; p = 0.008), and INR (OR 4.42; p = 0.020) were independent predictors of stroke in multivariate analysis with a trend toward significance for history of stroke (OR 6.25; p = 0.075). Stroke represented an important source of morbidity and mortality for patients on HM II LVAD support. As long-term device therapy continues to gain popularity for both BTT and DT, a better understanding of the predictors of stroke, more strict control of postoperative anticoagulation, and the establishment of a risk stratification model may aid in minimizing its occurrence.


The paper investigates the potential impact of the EAC (a South-South Regional grouping) on trade creation and diversion. The paper seeks to establish whether the EAC Regional Trade Agreement has diverted or created trade using an expanded (augmented) gravity model. The paper departs from the conventional estimation approach that uses average combined trade flows as the dependent variable which is prone to errors and uses exports. We estimate static and dynamic random effects models using a panel data set from 2001 to 2011 on seventy countries that trade mainly with the EAC partner states. Results suggest that indeed the implementation of the EAC treaty has created trade contrary to widely held views that South- South RTAs largely divert trade. There is thus evidence that the EAC, a south-south RTA has been a more trade creating than trade diverting as espoused in the literature. The paper explains the possible measures that have helped generate the trade underscored; formulation and implementation of EAC medium term development strategies, removal of internal tariffs and adoption of a CET structure. The paper further highlights that although progress has been made in other areas, there are challenges that need to be addressed to deepen the EAC integration: persistence of NTB; lack of a common policy with regard to partner states' trade policies to non-partner states; the lack of standardized customs formalities; the lack of harmonized procedures; and different approaches to investment and export promotion. It is recommended that; the region adopts a legally binding approach to NTBs, harmonizes trade policies and standardizes documentation and procedures.


Studies of periodical processes in the evolution of art became rather widespread. P. Sorokin described cycles of about several centuries; periods close to 50 years have been observed in social relations by S. Maslov; numerous cycles in the stylistic evolution of art became well known due to C. Martindale. One of important characteristics of art history is the 'intensity of artistic creativity', which can be measured as the total (summary) volume of encyclopedic descriptions devoted to artists of appropriate creative sphere during every temporal segment of 1..10 years. These rows of 'experimental data' form evolutionary curves on historical time interval of several centuries. Such curves contain two components: a long-term trend and an 'oscillating part', which have time constants of about decades of years. In the row of historical data, these oscillations may be represented with only 2..10 'waves' including 2 to 10 sampling points pro oscillation period. The goal of investigation is, to measure parameters of such oscillating components.


We develop a Bayesian analysis framework to detect heterogeneity in the diffusive behaviour of single particle trajectories on cells, implementing model selection to classify trajectories as either consistent with Brownian motion or with a two-state (diffusion coefficient) switching model. The incorporation of localisation accuracy is essential, as otherwise false detection of switching within a trajectory was observed and diffusion coefficient estimates were inflated. Since our analysis is on a single trajectory basis, we are able to examine heterogeneity between trajectories in a quantitative manner. Applying our method to the lymphocyte function-associated antigen 1 (LFA-1) receptor tagged with latex beads (4 s trajectories at 1000 frames s−1), both intra- and inter-trajectory heterogeneity were detected; 12–26% of trajectories display clear switching between diffusive states dependent on condition, whilst the inter-trajectory variability is highly structured with the diffusion coefficients being related by D 1 = 0.68D 0 − 1.5 × 104 nm2 s−1, suggestive that on these time scales we are detecting switching due to a single process. Further, the inter-trajectory variability of the diffusion coefficient estimates (1.6 × 102 − 2.6 × 105 nm2 s−1) is very much larger than the measurement uncertainty within trajectories, suggesting that LFA-1 aggregation and cytoskeletal interactions are significantly affecting mobility, whilst the timescales of these processes are distinctly different giving rise to inter- and intra-trajectory variability. There is also an 'immobile' state (defined as D < 3.0 × 103 nm2 s−1) that is rarely involved in switching, immobility occurring with the highest frequency (47%) under T cell activation (phorbol-12-myristate-13-acetate (PMA) treatment) with enhanced cytoskeletal attachment (calpain inhibition). Such 'immobile' states frequently display slow linear drift, potentially reflecting binding to a dynamic actin cortex. Our methods allow significantly more information to be extracted from individual trajectories (ultimately limited by time resolution and time-series length), and allow statistical comparisons between trajectories thereby quantifying inter-trajectory heterogeneity. Such methods will be highly informative for the construction and fitting of molecule mobility models within membranes incorporating aggregation, binding to the cytoskeleton, or traversing membrane microdomains.


In this paper we present a component based person detection system that is capable of detecting frontal, rear and near side views of people, and partially occluded persons in cluttered scenes. The framework that is described here for people is easily applied to other objects as well. The motivation for developing a component based approach is two fold: first, to enhance the performance of person detection systems on frontal and rear views of people and second, to develop a framework that directly addresses the problem of detecting people who are partially occluded or whose body parts blend in with the background. The data classification is handled by several support vector machine classifiers arranged in two layers. This architecture is known as Adaptive Combination of Classifiers (ACC). The system performs very well and is capable of detecting people even when all components of a person are not found. The performance of the system is significantly better than a full body person detector designed along similar lines. This suggests that the improved performance is due to the components based approach and the ACC data classification structure.


Conventional sanitation technologies based on pit lavatories and flush toilets cannot solve the problem of waste water managements in urban setting which mostly comprises with poor water systems infrastructures. Therefore this study aimed to assess the extent of application and acceptability for Eco-San toilets technologies among the urban community in solving the existing and emerging sanitation problems in Dar es Salaam urban. A cross-sectional study design using both qualitative and quantitative method involves 163 randomly selected head of households in Hananasifu ward was adopted. Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 20 used to process and analyze Quantitative data. Descriptive statistics such as frequencies, percentages as well as inferential statistics such as Pearson Chi-Square analysis were used to analyses the association among the variables. A 95% confidence interval was estimated and association drawn with significance level (p < 0.05) for all tests statistics. The qualitative data were analyzed using content analysis. Findings shows that, among households involved in this study none applied ecological sanitation, 90.2% uses pit latrines and 9.8% uses flush toilets which both have impact in ground water pollution as far as slums settlements and poor sanitation systems is concerned in this area. About 98.8% of the head of household residing in Hananasifu ward were not aware with Eco-san technologies, although after being introduced with some of the Eco-san systems majority finds out to accept Humanure and Urine diversion (UD) models of Ecosan. From the Findings and field observations, the study recommends the importance of promoting Eco-santechnology in area with high population and poor sanitation infrastructure like Hananasifu ward.


The internet technology over the past few decades has become an important tool in higher education for learning, teaching and research. The study investigated the internet activities engaged in, frequency of use of the internet and challenges limiting the use of the internet among the undergraduate students of the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. A survey research design was adopted. A close-ended questionnaire was used to collect data from 300 undergraduate students. Findings were analysed using descriptive statistics and the result indicated that the respondents had good computer skills and used the internet for various activities which vary across faculty of study. The respondents were dissatisfied with the high cost of accessing the internet and inadequate internet facilities. The major recommendation of the study is the provision of basic internet training for the students; equipping the university with adequate internet facilities; regular power supply and free internet access to all university students.

 Key words: Utilization of internet, undergraduate students, University of Ibadan, Nigeria.


In experiments on young females white rats by means of methods of electromyography and ergography we investigated the efficiency of a testosterone-propionate for smoothing of negative effects of dexamethasone on skeletal muscle. It has been established that the chronic injection of dexamethasone causes the decreasing of amplitude of contraction of forward tibial muscle on 29.7-59.3% (after 5-25 injections) and the lengthening of the latent period of muscle's excitation on 18.5-16.5% (after 15-25 injections), whereas the complex application of testosterone and dexamethasone prevents the changing of these parameters. At the same time testosterone didn't provide the smoothing of negative influence of dexamethasone on muscle's resistance to fatigue development.


In this paper, a recently interested radiation sensor operating in the gas proportional mode, the so-called microdot-typed radiation sensor, is described for inherently two-dimensional (2-D) readout capability. We present new observations and measurements realized with the microdot-typed sensor of a 50-/spl mu/m pitch, including gas gain, rate capability, aging effect, and insensitive zone. The intrinsically 2-D structure of this sensor makes it attractive for potential applications, such as X-ray imaging devices and tracking sensors, at colliders for the next-generation synchrotron radiation sources.


Abstract: In competitive electricity markets, markets designs based on power exchanges where supply bidding (barring demand-side bidding) is at the sole short run marginal cost may not guarantee resource adequacy. As alternative ways to remedy the resource adequacy problem, we focus on three different market designs in detail when demand is inelastic, namely an energy-only market with VOLL pricing (or a price cap), an additional capacity market, and operating-reserve pricing. We also discuss demand-side bidding (i.e., a price responsive demand) which can be seen as a categorically different alternative to remedy the resource adequacy problem. We consider a perfectly competitive market consisting of three types of agents: generators, a transmission system operator, and consumers; all agents are assumed to have no market power. For each market design, we model and analyze capacity investment choices of firms using a two-stage game where generation capacities are installed in the first stage and generation takes place in future spot markets at the second stage. When future spot market conditions are assumed to be known a priori (i.e., deterministic demand case), we show that all of these two-stage models with different market mechanisms, except operating-reserve pricing, can be cast as single optimization problems. When future spot market conditions are not known in advance (i.e., under demand uncertainty), we essentially have a two-stage stochastic game. Interestingly, an equilibrium point of this stochastic game can be found by solving a two-stage stochastic program, in case of all of the market mechanisms except operating-reserve pricing. In case of operatingreserve pricing, while the formulation of an equivalent deterministic or stochastic optimization problem is possible when operating-reserves are based on observed demand, this simplicity is lost when operatingreserves are based on installed capacities. We generalize these results for other uncertain parameters in spot markets such as fuel costs and transmission capacities. Finally, we illustrate how all these models can be numerically tackled and present numerical experiments. In our numerical experiments, we observe that uncertainty of demand leads to higher total generation capacity expansion and a broader mix of technologies compared to the investment decisions assuming average demand levels. Furthermore for the same VOLL (or price cap) level and under the assumptions of random demand with finite support and no forced outages, energy-onlymarkets with VOLL pricing tend to lead to total generation capacity below the peak load with a certain probability whereas energy markets with a forward capacity market or operating-reserve pricing result in higher investments. Finally, the regulator decisions (e.g., reserve capacity target) in capacity markets and operating-reserve pricing can be chosen in such a way that results in very similar investment levels and fuel mix of generation capacities in b


We constructed a soybean bacterial artificial chromosome (BAC) library suitable for map-based cloning and physical mapping in soybean. This library consists of approximately 40 000 clones (4-5 genome equivalents) stored individually in 384-well microtiter dishes. A random sampling of 224 clones yielded an average insert size of 150 kb, giving a 98% probability of recovering any specific sequence. We screened the library for seven single or very low copy genie or genomic sequences using the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and found between one and seven BACs for each of the seven sequences. When testing the library with a portion of the soybean psbA chloroplast gene, we found less than 1% chloroplast DNA representation. We also screened the library for eight different classes of disease resistance gene analogs (RGAs) and identified BACs containing all RGAs except class 8. We arranged nine of the class 1 RGA BACs and six of the class 3 RGA BACs into individual contigs based on fingerprint patterns observed after Southern probing of restriction digests of the member BACs with a class-specific sequence. This resulted in the partial localization of the different multigene family sequences without precise definition of their exact positions. Using PCR-based end rescue techniques and RFLP mapping of BAC ends, we mapped individual BACs of each contig onto linkage group J of the soybean public map. The class 1 contig mapped to the region on linkage group J that contains several disease resistance genes. The class 1 contig extended approximately 400 kb. The arrangement of the BACs within this contig has been confirmed using PCR. One end of the class 1 contig core BAC mapped to two positions on linkage group J and cosegregated with two class 1 RGA loci, suggesting that this segment is within an area of regional duplication.


Introduction A detailed understanding of partner notification (PN) practices following STI diagnosis can improve PN strategies. Using data from 2 PN intervention trials in Lima, Peru, we assessed participant- and partner-level factors guiding partner-specific STI notification behaviour, including discordances between anticipated and actual notification. Methods From 2012–14, newly STI-diagnosed (gonorrhoea, chlamydia, syphilis) men who have sex with men (MSM) and/or with transgender women in Lima reported recent partners' characteristics, anticipated PN practices, and actual PN outcomes 14 day following STI diagnosis. In this sub-analysis of control-arm participants, GEE Poisson regression analyses assessed factors guiding PN outcomes. Results Participants (n=150) predominantly identified as homosexual (70%) and moderno (versatile sexual role, 55%); 55% of partners (n=402) were casual. 35% of partners were notified overall, though only 51% of anticipated PN occurred and 26% of notifications were unanticipated. 47% of participants did not notify any partners, while 24% notified all partners. PN was more frequent for main vs. casual (adjusted prevalence ratio [aPR] 0.55, p<0.01; adjusted for anticipated PN) or commercial (aPR 0.29, p<0.05) partners, with a trend toward notifying partners that used condoms (crude PR 1.30, p=0.09). PN frequency did not differ by STI diagnosis. Anticipated PN predicted actual PN (aPR 1.60, p<0.01) imperfectly as 81 (54%) participants' PN practices did not match anticipated behaviour. Successful notification despite anticipated silence (40 participants, 63 partners) was associated with stable partnerships and perceived community norms supporting PN. Failure of PN despite intent (43 participants, 73 partners) more frequently occurred when oral sex with the partner was exclusively reported, with a trend towards identifying the partner as activo (insertive role). Conclusion Anticipated PN imperfectly reflects actual PN behaviour. Future interventions to improve notification should acknowledge the differing partnership contexts maintained by MSM.


PURPOSE
This study presents and validates a novel (non-ECG-triggered) MRI sequence based on spatial modulation of the magnetization (SPAMM) to noninvasively measure 3D (quasistatic) soft tissue deformations using only six acquisitions (three static and three indentations). In the current SPAMM tagged MRI approaches, data are typically constructed from many repeated motion cycles. This has so far restricted its application to the measurement of highly repeatable and periodic movements (e.g., cardiac deformation). In biomechanical applications where soft tissue deformation is artificially induced, often by indentation, significant repeatability constraints exist, and for clinical applications, discomfort and health issues generally preclude a large number of repetitions.

METHODS
A novel (non-ECG-triggered) SPAMM tagged MRI sequence is presented, whereby a single 1-1 (first order) SPAMM set is acquired following a 3D transient field echo acquisition. Full 3D deformation measurement is achieved through the combination of only six acquisitions (three static and three motion cycles). The 3D deformation measurements were validated using quasistatic indentation tests and marker tracking in a silicone gel soft tissue phantom. In addition, the technique's ability to measure 3D soft tissue deformation in vivo was evaluated using indentation of the biceps region of the upper arm in a volunteer.

RESULTS
Following comparison to marker tracking in the silicone gel phantom, the SPAMM tagged MRI based displacement measurement demonstrated subvoxel accuracy with a mean displacement difference of 72 microm and a standard deviation of 289 microm. In addition, precision of displacement magnitude was evaluated for both the phantom and the volunteer data. The standard deviations of the displacement magnitude with respect to the average displacement magnitude were 75 and 169 microm for the phantom and volunteer data, respectively.

CONCLUSIONS
The subvoxel accuracy and precision demonstrated in the phantom in combination with the precision comparison between the phantom and the volunteer data provide confidence in the methods presented for measurement of soft tissue deformation in vivo. To the author's knowledge, since only six acquisitions are required, the presented methodology is the fastest SPAMM tagged MRI method currently available for the noninvasive measurement of quasistatic 3D soft tissue deformation.


Background: Pulmonary hypertension (PH) is a progressive cardiovascular disease, characterized by endothelial and smooth muscle dysfunction and vascular remodeling, followed by right heart failure. Group III PH develops secondarily to chronic lung disease such as idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), and both hastens and predicts mortality despite of all known pharmacological interventions. Thus, there is urgent need for development of newer treatment strategies. Objective: Angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (ACE2), a member of the renin angiotensin family, is therapeutically beneficial in animal models of pulmonary vascular diseases and is currently in human clinical trials for primary PH. Although previous studies suggest that administration of ACE2 prevents PH secondary to bleomycin-induced murine IPF, it is unknown whether ACE2 can reverse or treat existing disease. Therefore, in the present study, we tested the efficacy of ACE2 in arresting the progression of group 3 PH. Methods: To establish pulmonary fibrosis, we administered 0.018 U/g bleomycin 2x/week for 4 weeks in adult FVB/N mice, and sacrificed 5 weeks following the first injection. ACE2 or vehicle was administered via osmotic pump for the final 2 weeks, beginning 3 weeks after bleomycin. Echocardiography and hemodynamic assessment was performed prior to sacrifice and tissue collection. Results: Administration of bleomycin significantly increased lung collagen expression, pulmonary vascular remodeling, and pulmonary arterial pressure, and led to mild right ventricular hypertrophy. Acute treatment with ACE2 significantly attenuated vascular remodeling and increased pulmonary SOD2 expression without measurable effects on pulmonary fibrosis. This was associated with nonsignificant positive effects on pulmonary arterial pressure and cardiac function. Conclusion: Collectively, our findings enumerate that ACE2 treatment improved pulmonary vascular muscularization following bleomycin exposure, concomitant with increased SOD2 expression. Although it may not alter the pulmonary disease course of IPF, ACE2 could be an effective therapeutic strategy for the treatment of group 3 PH.


Invasive plant species represent a serious threat to biodiversity precipitating a sustained global effort to eradicate or at least control the spread of this phenomenon. Current distribution ranges of many invasive species are likely to be modified in the future by land cover and climate change. Thus, invasion management can be made more effective by forecasting the potential spread of invasive species. Rhododendron ponticum (L.) is an aggressive invasive species which appears well suited to western areas of the UK. We made use of MAXENT modeling environment to develop a current distribution model and to assess the likely effects of land cover and climatic conditions (LCCs) on the future distribution of this species in the Snowdonia National park in Wales. Six global circulation models (GCMs) and two representative concentration pathways (RCPs), together with a land cover simulation for 2050 were used to investigate species' response to future environmental conditions. Having considered a range of environmental variables as predictors and carried out the AICc-based model selection, we find that under all LCCs considered in this study, the range of R. ponticum in Wales is likely to contract in the future. Land cover and topographic variables were found to be the most important predictors of the distribution of R. ponticum. This information, together with maps indicating future distribution trends will aid the development of mitigation practices to control R. ponticum.


Agriculture is the backbone of Kenya's economy, supporting up to 80% of rural livelihoods. Kenya's export horticulture is currently the leading agriculture subsector in Kenya and is regarded as an agro-industrial food system based on the economies of scale, producing for mass markets outside of the production area. Much of the food consumed from Kenya's export horticulture sector has undergone multiple transformations and been subject to a host of formal and informal institutions (rules, regulations, standards, norms and values). Kenya's export horticulture production, driven by rising global demands, has expanded beyond the 'traditional' mountainous high yielding areas into arid and semi-arid (ASALs) zones such as Laikipia County, Northwest of Mount Kenya. An anthropological study of export horticulture viewed as an agro-industrial food system in Laikipia County was carried out utilizing the new institutionalism theory in anthropology to explore the actors, rules and regulations linked to export horticulture production and access to common pool resources. The study employed qualitative data collection methods to collect data over an extended field work period of eight months. The data from 40 in-depth interviews complemented by unstructured observations, four focus group discussions and five key informant interviews was transcribed, coded and analyzed thematically based on the grounded theory approach. This paper, therefore, presents findings from the qualitative case study on the actors as well as the rules and regulations (the institutional settings) of export horticulture production and access to common pool resources from an emic perspective of the involved actors. The formal and informal rules and regulations which form the institutional setting in this food system are viewed as changing and defining the operations of the food system's access and management of common pool resources, namely water and land. With the agro-industrial food system competing with local food systems such as agro-pastoralism and small holder agriculture for these scarce resources in a semi-arid zone, there is potential for conflict and reduced production, as well as overall benefits to the different actors in the study area.


Background : An examination (audit) of the files of patients who had received any mental health services in the year prior to an alleged offence may inform our understanding of the relationship between mental health and crime. More helpfully, it may provide information to facilitate a reduction in the rate of such tragic events Method : The records of all patients assessed by the Midland Regional Forensic Psychiatric service in the 26 months from January 2010 were screened. The 222 who received a diagnosis of a non-organic psychosis and who were recorded as having offended within one year of a previous psychiatric service attendance formed the cohort. The data extracted from their clinical files, relating primarily to that pre-offence psychiatric contact, included legal, clinical and contextual information. Results : Analysis examined the characteristics of this forensic population and most particularly, of their pre-offending service contact. This identified clinical practice and delivery issues which could reduce the rate of conversion of psychiatric patients to "forensic" status. Conclusions : The results inform issues of effectiveness of adult service delivery with particular consideration of the intensity of clinical contact, antipsychotic drug choice and adherence and the use of assertive treatment.


Proliferation of the gastrointestinal mucosa is stimulated by the growth factors, insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF-I) and transforming growth factor-alpha (TGF-alpha), or the closely related epidermal growth factor (EGF), as well as the gastrointestinal hormones, gastrin, neurotensin (NT), and peptide YY (PYY). The stimulatory actions of these growth factors or gastrointestinal hormones on the gastrointestinal mucosa may be direct or mediated in part by gastrointestinal peptides or the growth factors, respectively. The purpose of these studies therefore was to examine the effects of IGF-I and TGF-alpha on stomach gastrin and intestinal NT and PYY gene expression [i.e. messenger RNA (mRNA), peptide levels] and secretion. Mice were given recombinant human IGF-I (3, 6 mg/kg BW/day x 14 days). Transgenic mice with the rat TGF-alpha gene linked to a metallothionein promoter were used as a model of chronic TGF-alpha excess. IGF-I and TGF-alpha did not affect gastrin gene expression. Steady-state intestinal NT and PYY mRNA and peptide levels were elevated in a dose-related manner by IGF. TGF-alpha also increased intestinal expression of NT and PYY peptide, but not mRNA levels. Basal serum levels of PYY were elevated by IGF-I and TGF-alpha. IGF-I and TGF-alpha did not increase intestinal chromogranin A (CGA) gene expression, a marker of endocrine cells, or the density of PYY-containing cells in the colon, indicating that the elevations in intestinal gut peptide gene expression by IGF-I and TGF-alpha are not due simply to an increased number of enteroendocrine cells. IV infusion of EGF also stimulated release of PYY in the dog. Together, these findings indicate that IGF-I and TGF-alpha may cause secretion of gut hormones and exert a major upregulatory influence on the regulation of intestinal peptide hormone homeostasis.


The FT-Raman spectra are described of green and red snow algae, Chlamydomona, involved in the colonization of exposed surfaces of the McLeod Glacier, Jane Col, Signy Island, situated at the northern edge of the Weddell Sea, Antarctica. The protective biochemicals produced by these extremophilic algae give rise to the so-called watermelon snow of Alpine regions. The red colour of the senescent algae is shown to derive from the accumulation of carotenoids and a deficiency of chlorophyll believed to arise from UV-radiation induced breakdown into phaecophytin. A comparison of the Raman spectra of young (green) and old (red) algae is effected and possible bio-markers for spectral detection on extraterrestrial icy moons and planets are identified.


Objectives: To compare the test characteristics of both ultrasound and MRI derived parameters in predicting survival. Methods: This is a retrospective study utilizing an existing study dataset of 85 fetuses with isolated left CDH. All had detailed prenatal evaluation, prenatal care, delivery and postnatal care at one institution. Ultrasound was used to calculate lung:head ratio (LHR) and observed/expected LHR (O/E LHR) and MRI for observed/expected total lung volume (O/E TLV) and percent herniated liver (%HL). Logistic regression and ROC evaluation were performed. Test characteristics were determined for prediction of survival. A p value of 0.05 was used for statistical significance. Results: R2 values for all parameters were similar and all were statistically significant predictors of survival. ROC analysis showed ultrasound determined parameters (LHR and O/E LHR) had a similar area under the curve (AUC) of 0.70 while MRI parameters (O/E TLV and %HL) had AUC of 0.82 and 0.84 respectively. At ROC determined optimal cut-off values, MRI parameters have higher sensitivity/specificity combinations at lower false positive rates (FPR) than the ultrasound parameters. At a standardized 5% FPR, %HL performs the best with a sensitivity/specificity of 0.76/0.78. At clinically employed cut-off values the sensitivity levels are similar for all parameters but MRI parameters provide the best combination of sensitivity and specificity as evidenced by better likelihood ratios (LR) (Table 1). Conclusions: A variety of measures have been proposed as antenatal predictors of survival in CDH. The two ultrasound parameters function at a similar level. MRI parameters appear to offer better predictive value.


ABSTRACT Written and set in the Australian colonies, Robert Potter's The Germ Growers (1892) was amongst the earliest novels that engaged with the theme of extra-terrestrial invasion. It describes the discovery of aliens who breed 'germs' in a sophisticated laboratory hidden in the outback with the aim of conquering the human species. The novel's introduction of these otherworldly interlopers into a setting already host to the political, social and scientific experiments of invaders, puts the colonial preoccupations with settlement and dispossession into sharp relief. Potter's portrayal of relations between white settlers, aliens, exogenous and Indigenous others, accentuates how anxieties about invasion and contamination, insiders and outsiders, humans and nonhumans were accompanied by the application of scientific knowledge and technological expertise in the establishment and administration of social order. Highlighting the idea of colonies as sites for refining elaborate strategies of coercion and control, the novel provides a situated perspective upon the ways in which the affordances of the laboratory operated as central features of the imperial project and influenced its role in the development of biopolitical governance. In doing so, The Germ Growers brings attention to the archive of colonial fiction as a means of approaching the social and historical contexts that continue to undergird relations between science and culture.


GenScalpel is a program designed for the retrieval and extraction of specified sequences from large-scale sequence sets in NCBI GenBank flatfile format. This routine task in bioinformatics analysis is a pressing need for laboratory biologists. Another objective of application development is to respond to the new form of the NCBI Nucleotide Sequence Database, which was updated in November 2011. In addition to a powerful sequence refinement application, GenScalpel provides convenient functions for web-based sequence downloading or multiple files batch processing. This note discusses major applications of the program and includes example data sets to demonstrate its performance. The program is written in PERL. GenScalpel, including installation packages for Windows and Linux systems as well as the accompanying documentation, are available free of charge at http://genscalpel.biosv.com/.


This dataset cointains the XML files of the inscriptions and the bibliography used in the critical edition: Dobias-Lalou, Catherine. Inscriptions of Greek Cyrenaica in collaboration with Alice Bencivenni, Hugues Berthelot, with help from Simona Antolini, Silvia Maria Marengo, and Emilio Rosamilia; Dobias-Lalou, Catherine. Greek Verse Inscriptions of Cyrenaica in collaboration with Alice Bencivenni, with help from Joyce M. Reynolds and Charlotte Roueche. Bologna: CRR-MM, Alma Mater Studiorum Universita di Bologna, 2017. ISBN 9788898010684, http://doi.org/10.6092/UNIBO/IGCYRGVCYR. The inscriptions are marked up according to the principles of EpiDoc. The Inscriptions of Greek Cyrenaica (IGCyr) and the Greek Verse Inscriptions of Cyrenaica (GVCyr) are two corpora, the first collecting all the inscriptions of Greek (VII-I centuries B.C.) Cyrenaica, the second gathering the Greek metrical texts of all periods (VI B.C.-VI A.D.). These new critical editions of inscriptions from Cyrenaica are part of the international project Inscriptions of Libya (InsLib). For the first time all the inscriptions known to us in March 2017, coming from this area of the ancient Mediterranean world, are assembled in a single online and open access publication.


Automatic spoken language assessment systems are becoming more popular in order to handle increasing interests in second language learning. One challenge for these systems is to detect malpractice. Malpractice can take a range of forms, this paper focuses on detecting when a candidate attempts to impersonate another in a speaking test. This form of malpractice is closely related to speaker verification, but applied in the specific domain of spoken language assessment. Advanced speaker verification systems, which leverage deep-learning approaches to extract speaker representations, have been successfully applied to a range of native speaker verification tasks. These systems are explored for non-native spoken English data in this paper. The data used for speaker enrolment and verification is mainly taken from the BULATS test, which assesses English language skills for business. Performance of systems trained on relatively limited amounts of BULATS data, and standard large speaker verification corpora, is compared. Experimental results on large-scale test sets with millions of trials show that the best performance is achieved by adapting the imported model to non-native data. Breakdown of impostor trials across different first languages (L1s) and grades is analysed, which shows that inter-L1 impostors are more challenging for speaker verification systems.


Growing interest towards cloud application platforms has resulted in a large number of platform offerings to be already available on the market and new related products to be continuously launched. However, there are a number of challenges that prevent cloud application platforms from becoming widely adopted. One such challenge is application portability. This paper reports on an ongoing effort to explore the area of cloud application portability. We briefly examine the issue of heterogeneity in cloud platforms and highlight specific platform characteristics that may hinder the portability of cloud applications. We present some high level approaches and existing work that attempts to address this challenge. In order to narrow down the area of our exploration we have been carrying out an experiment in cross-platform application development and deployment with four prominent cloud platforms: OpenShift, Google App Engine, Heroku, and Amazon Elastic Beanstalk. We briefly discuss our initial conclusions from this ongoing experimentation.


Functional Products (FP), total offers or product service systems that comprise of both Hardware (HW) and Support Services (SS) sold as an integrated offering under an availability guarantee are becoming increasing popular in industry. This paper addresses, through modelling and simulation the challenge faced by suppliers in developing an integrated HW and SS design to produce an FP which meets contracted availability. A recently published framework specified how an integrated model hardware and service support system model could be used to obtain functional availability predictions and perform simulation driven functional product development. This paper presents the first example of an integrated functional product model. It uses fault tree, Petri net and discrete event simulation techniques to enable the prediction of functional product availability and support costs. Such predictions are used here to evaluate and compare different service support system designs.


The Materials Research Laboratory of The Pennsylvania State University is a general purpose central analytical facility, which has most of the currently available instruments found in industrial laboratories. For the pastfour years a determined effort has been made by the scientists to introduce the computer for instrument control, data collection, and analysis. The two reasons which primarily motivated these changes were: (1) increased use-since the computer could collect data and control instruments at off hours, thus increasing the total instrument use time per week, and (2) increased analytical capability-since the instruments can spend the time on important data rather than background. Also, once the data are stored in a digital format, it is possible to use a selection of independent routines to analyze the data. The central computer facility consists of a dual processor PDP-1½0 with a full assortment of input/output (I/O) peripherals. The system is being run under Digital Equipment Corp. (DEC) operating system RT-11 with the users (scientists) programming in BASIC or FORTRAN. Several important desicions have been made by the manager of this facility and include the following: (a) all equipment is optically isolated from each other; (b) computer science and electrical engineering graduate students are responsible for the interface software and hardware; (c) the scientists, alone, are responsible for the application software; (d) all DEC equipment is maintained through a service contract; and (e) a link with an International Business Machine's (IBM) 370/3033 is available for large computational problems. A discussion of these topics and the actual use with the following five instruments will constitute the body of the paper: (1) scanning electron microscope, (2) ellipsometer, (3) ion scattering/electron spectroscopy for chemical analysis, spectrometer, (4) dielectric measurement facility, (5) soft X-ray spectrometer, and (6) laser raman spectrometer.